The Escape
by MusexMoirai
Summary: Sometimes you've got to work for that happy ending.


Title: The Escape  
  
Author: MusexMoirai  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Feedback: If it's nice, that's good. If it's useful, that's better.  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine, they're Disney's. Savvy?  
  
Summary: Sometimes you've got to work for that happy ending.  
  
***  
  
The barred door opens on the third day of his incarceration.  
  
Will Turner watches Governor Swann step into the cell. He can tell that the man is not used to such filth by the almost dainty way he walks.  
  
Turner's eyes then stray to young Ms. Swann, who has followed her father in.  
  
He feels ashamed that she has to see him like this, unkempt and unwashed for days. He looks at her bright beauty and instantly his clothes feel shabbier and his hair itches on his neck.  
  
But she doesn't look disgusted or amused and she smiles at him warmly. He watches her the whole time her father is speaking.  
  
It barely registers in his head that the Governor is granting him clemency, absolving him of the crime of loving Elizabeth too much.  
  
Even his hard-earned freedom feels bleak because the prize has still been lost all along.  
  
The Governor blissfully announces that Elizabeth and the Commodore will be married tomorrow. There is no malice in his voice, only the happy pride of a father.  
  
Turner smiles thinly and nods. Then he walks through the open door and up the stairs and into the bright sunlight.  
  
Elizabeth had reached for him as he brushed by her, against the disapproving gaze of her father. She tried to press her clean soft fingers on his skin and stroke his suntanned cheek. But he had averted her touch at the last instant and ignored the way her eyes had closed up and she had become withdraws.  
  
He walks out into the smell and sound and color of the busy street. He hears the loud cheering of a crowd somewhere off in the distance and walks toward it. His heart is heavy.  
  
***  
  
The rope feels rough against his neck.  
  
Captain Jack Sparrow waits patiently, very patiently, as the esteemed Commodore calls out his name. Sans the title, at which he rolls his eyes.  
  
The crowd is ogling him like he is a novelty, which he supposes that he is. They've seen pirates before, but not the likes of him. Even his clothes hint of glamour and mystique, dulling the fabric of their own garb.  
  
Every mother's child has grown up with tales of pirates in his ears and he knows they're supposed to look like this.  
  
Sparrow loves playacting and he fits the role so well. Even now, dangling undignified from the end of the hangman's noose, his audience is captivated.  
  
He smiles at the crowd, flashing gold teeth. He's not afraid. He's always trusted luck and wits to get him out of tight situations.  
  
They won't fail him now.  
  
He wishes he had a view of the ocean because he wants to look at the colorful British boats in the harbor. He wants to watch the sunlight play off the waves and he wants to see the billowing sails of the newly- liberated Black Pearl as she glides into the port.  
  
Sparrow waits and his eyes scan the skies, searching for the green and red plumage of a parrot as the harbinger of good news. Or then he looks at the unfamiliar crowd, trying to pick out a well-known face. Maybe he can't see it now because it's disguised under a fancy hat or in different clothes.  
  
Turner will certainly come to watch Sparrow hang and pay his last regards. But he knows Bootstrap's son well and he knows the lad will have a sudden attack of conscience.  
  
There will be a rescue and an escape, the likes of which Port Royal has never seen before. They will always remember the day Jack Sparrow escaped.  
  
So he waits and watches while the tension of the masses is released into a roaring cheer. He watches for the flash of a blacksmith's sword.  
  
Jack Sparrow knows that he will not hang today.  
  
***  
  
People press in on her from all sides as she makes her way through the crowd.  
  
Eventually Elizabeth Swann reaches the hangman's platform. Her eyes widen and her mouth falls open.  
  
There is a body twisting in the air from the end of the rope.  
  
The roguish eyes are open and a smirk graces the blackguard's face, irrepressible to the last.  
  
Will is untying the rope with hasty hands, in such a fervor that blood rushes down the back of his palm. He pulls the corpse free and gathers it to his chest.  
  
There are tears tracking down his face and her cheeks are wet as well.  
  
Swann watches as Will picks up the body and walks.  
  
He walks to the low wall of the fort, built where the stone cliff drops into the sea.  
  
He walks beyond the wall and never stops walking.  
  
The ocean is never silent but she keeps her own counsel. She gathers the bodies of her dead men close to her. She loves them and keeps them like treasure and never returns them to the shore. 


End file.
